A/N

Thank you so much to the people who have commented recently! It's so wonderful to finally get some feedback on this fic. It's always really appreciated 3

He couldn't do it.

All of them were staring at him with an unbearable air of pity. Why had he let Lily talk him into doing it this way?

She had insisted that if he tried to deal with it quietly and continue to keep them all out then he would just end up right back at square one. She was probably right. Any attempt he'd made to stop using so far had pretty much failed before it started. That didn't make the idea of confessing his weakness to all of his closest friends at once any less humiliating.

At first Lily hadn't wanted him to leave her house at all. She wanted to deal with it then and there, bringing in James and Sirius and just getting it all out of the way. She'd almost had him convinced. It would be so much easier to have her there as backup with Sirius. To have him show up with Remus already getting sick, to let Lily do the talking for him. Even Sirius would find it hard to argue with him while he was busy puking up his guts.

No. Sirius deserved better than that. He deserved better than to just be another part of the group, thrust into the middle of a crisis and forced to put his own feelings about it to the side. He deserved an honest, open conversation and for once in his fucking life, Remus was going to give it to him. He was going to try.

After a lot of back and forth he finally managed to convince Lily that it had to be that way. They came up with a plan that would have Remus see one last night of freedom, to be spent having what was likely to be a deeply unpleasant conversation. He would come back the next day, him and Sirius together if all went well. She decided if they were going to wait, then she'd use the time wisely, make sure everything was in place to deal with whatever complications may arise. She figured the best way to do that was to bring in Dorcas and Marlene, the resident experts, being a healer and an addict respectively. Neither of them really knew how sick he was going to get or what to do if something went wrong, so it made sense to get their help. And James would be there of course since it was his house, and hell if the whole gang's there might as well invite Peter. He let it all get away from him a bit, but he was too tired and ashamed to fight Lily on the finer details. In the end he'd practically agreed to help host his own intervention.

He kept flashing back to when they were kids. Walking into his dormitory, first night back after his transformation. James, Sirius, and Peter had been waiting with a pile of chocolate and hot tea. There was a chart mapping the lunar cycle laid out. As soon as he saw it he tried to leave, but James blocked the door. It took hours to break through the blind panic enough to assure him they were on his side no matter what. Months after that before he really trusted it.

Fuck though, with all the other fears and pain that came from them knowing, it had still been so much better than having to hide.

So they had a day to prepare. A day before he would be giving up his lifeline. Lily was very reluctant to let him go. Neither of them said it, but they both knew if he was going home, he was getting high. He promised her he was coming back. They were going through with this, no matter what.

Truth was he had no plans of backing out. He couldn't keep going like this. He was tired. So, so tired.

Sirius hadn't come home until late, caught up with an important report. When he got back to the flat, Remus was sitting at the table, waiting for him. It's what Sirius always did when he wanted to have a difficult conversation, so he was immediately alert. He was a little confused when Remus asked him to go for a walk.

They ended up at the nearby community center. The support group had some late meetings which Remus had found the times of on a pamphlet. Sirius side eyed him as they walked in and sat down in the plastic fold out chairs at the back of the room, behind a small audience of exhausted looking people. Remus didn't give an explanation, just sat with his arms folded across his chest, avoiding looking at Sirius. The woman at the front of the room seemed to be halfway through a story.

"It's totally fucked, after all that time to just mess it all up again. I really thought I was over it. I didn't barely even got cravings anymore, you know? I was clean for years, and then I was at this big work event and I went out back for a smoke and couple of the servers were having their own little party. It wasn't planned. I hadn't thought about it in ages, but suddenly it was there and I just... acted. That was about six months ago, now here I am. Again. I won't go into all the gory details right now, but the thing that really gets me is that I thought I was done. Arrogant, I know. I thought I has just gotten over my addiction and I was better now. Better than all of you. Like I didn't need this place anymore. I think for the first time, I really understand that this is forever. I'm going to have to be fighting this every goddamn day for the rest of my life. I couldn't imagine anything more miserable. Except for not fighting it, I guess."

That statement got her a few sympathetic nods. Sirius tapped his fingers on his thigh nervously, listening intently to the woman. She wrapped up with a description of her commitment to moving forward with her sobriety and thanked the group. She sat down after a smattering of unenthusiastic applause. They sat together as another few people came and told their stories. Sirius payed close attention while Remus just tried resist the urge to get up and leave. The smell of stale coffee and sweat permeated the air. His hands were shaking.

Another lost soul took the podium. He described his issues with alcohol that had cost him his relationship. A girl who looked barley older than eighteen talked about her continuing struggle with amphetamines that were first given to her by her mother in an effort to make her lose weight. The last speaker was an older man who spoke about his heroin addiction. He said he was fifteen years clean. He'd been in and out of jail in his youth and ran with a bad crowd, but eventually, after losing his best friend to an overdose, he decided he just couldn't do it anymore. Remus walked out when he was in the middle of his story. Nobody in the room payed attention to him. Sirius followed close behind.

When he got outside Remus was leaning against a wall, waiting for him. His breathing was shallow, but he seemed to be getting it under control. Sirius walked up to him. They looked at each other for a moment. Sirius noticed for the first time that Remus' eyes seemed a little swollen, like he'd been crying earlier. Rather than speak, he gestured to indicate Remus should walk with him. He did.

Sirius led them down to the Thames and they walked by the riverside, eventually coming to an old spot where they used to like to go after a big night out just to sit and decompress. The water glittered under the reflection of the city lights.

"I didn't know what to say," said Remus. "I was sitting at home all night trying to think of something and came up blank. I was hoping those people could do some of the heavy lifting for me, but I didn't realize how fucking unbearable it would be to listen to."

"I thought it was interesting."

"Then I suppose it was a success."

"Have you figured out what you want to say yet?" Sirius asked.

Remus pulled out a cigarette and lighter from his coat pocket. For once, Sirius didn't comment on it. Remus took a deep drag before speaking again.

"I really need you not to tell me this isn't real. It's fine if you don't understand, but I don't think I can handle it right now if you tell me I'm just making excuses," said Remus, looking imploringly at Sirius.

Sirius felt a stab of guilt. He'd been watching Remus a lot more closely lately, trying to see him through a lens of empathy rather than anger. Lily's words had finally gotten through to him a bit. The more he watched, the more he'd started to see that there was something very wrong. That it had been blatantly obvious for a long, long time and he'd just been so caught up in resentment that he hadn't allowed himself to acknowledge it.

"I'm listening," he said sincerely.

"I have a problem, Sirius. It's out of control, and I need help."

Remus didn't look at him as he spoke, staring out into the distance. He could feel Sirius' eyes on him.

"Alright," Sirius said. "Where do we go from here?"

"I have to get clean. To stop using. Or try to, anyway. I don't know how well the whole thing is going to go, but I do know that it's going to fail miserably if I do it alone."

"Why now? What brought this on?" Sirius asked.

"I think it's been coming on for a long time. Probably well overdue, actually. I had a talk with Lily today, and you know how she does that whole killing you with kindness thing. She finally wore me down, I guess."

"She's bloody relentless." A Beat. "We're very lucky to know her."

"Yeah, we are."

Remus and Lily had both agreed it was probably okay to leave out the part about the arrest. There were no charges and something like that was likely to freak the others out enough that it would totally derail the issue. Remus was grateful for this, as there was truly only so much he could handle. He'd tell Sirius eventually, when enough time had passed to laugh about it.

"So what now, then? Are you going to keep going to those meetings? Did that help?"

"No," said Remus very quickly. "No, I don't think that's for me. I could hardly talk at something like that, anyway. 'Hello muggles, my name is Remus, I'm an addict," his breath hitched slightly on the word and he noticed that Sirius' did too, but he powered through, "let me tell you about my experiences doing top secret work for a war you don't know about in a society that it's a crime for me to tell you exists."

"I see your point."

"I think I just need to stop all at once. And I need you all to know about it or I'm just going to start again because that's exactly what's happened every time I've tried before. Maybe that's weak, but I don't know what else to do and I'm so tired," he said, and Sirius could hear the truth of it in every syllable.

"It's not- look, I'm not going to pretend to understand completely. I know I've said some unfair things. I haven't been listening properly. I'm listening now, though. I don't think you're weak."

They'd stayed by the river for hours, just talking. Remus had explained the ins and outs of his habit, and to his surprise Sirius was actually fairly familiar with heroin. He'd never made the connection between that and drugs like Morphine or been able to specifically identify it as a substance Remus was using, but he was familiar on a conceptual level. He and James had worked a case way back that involved questioning some witnesses at a muggle drug den. Sirius shuddered to think that his partner was doing the same thing that had left those people in such a sorry state. It was hard to connect the image of those emaciated, sickly folks with the man in front of him.

"Also," Sirius had said, "I know who Sid Vicious is. Lou Reed, Iggy Pop. You don't spend this long hanging around the punk scene without learning what heroin is."

"Fair point. Unfortunately, I don't make great music so much as do stupid things that ruin my life and hurt everyone around me. Still, it's flattering to be in such good company."

They had to leave when Remus had started getting too sick. He'd wanted to have a clear head for their conversation, so between that and his eventful day, he was pushing well past his limits.

When they got home, Remus went right out to the terrace to smoke. Sirius followed him, watching on with a sense of morbid curiosity. Remus explained, when he asked how he'd almost never seen him using when he was doing it so frequently, about the laced cigarettes. Sirius noticed that he took them from a different package to the smokes he had earlier. He'd never picked up on that before.

"So you're really not stopping until the last possible second, then?" asked Sirius as Remus lit up.

"I have about 10 hours left and I'm making the most of it. I'm just sticking to the plan." He glanced uncomfortably at Sirius. "You really don't need to watch."

"Moony, I have watched you swallow, snort, and smoke an absurd assortment of substances more times than I can possibly count over the years," he said. He paused briefly, contemplating. "Though now that I think about it, not so much over the last year or so. Even when I knew you were doing that stuff on the regular, it wasn't in front of me. I guess that's part of it, right? Feeling like you need to hide so nobody knows how bad it is."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well, I know, so no point hiding. You can do whatever you want, but you've got an audience now and you'll just have to cope with that."

Remus was almost getting numb to the sense of shame that seemed to live permanently in his gut. It swelled a little as he took a drag, but it didn't stop him. A part of Sirius wanted to grab him and shake him. Ask him what the fuck he was doing, how he could put more of that shit into his body knowing the damage it had done. Instead, he just let it happen.

"I think Lily's afraid I won't show up," Remus said after a while.

"You're doing this even if I have to drag you kicking and screaming."

"I hope you're serious because you may well have to follow through on that."

"I'm always Sirius," he said completely deadpan.

Remus took another slow drag, refusing to acknowledge the joke but smiling slightly despite himself.

In the end Sirius didn't have to drag him kicking and screaming. No, he had to drag him to Godric's Hollow completely off his face. The closer morning came, the more that blind panic started to seep in and Remus dealt with it the same way he usually did. Sirius felt a sense of sick fascination as he watched the scene unfold. He thought maybe he should stop him. Then again, if the situation was reversed and Sirius knew he was about to give up something he loved (hopefully) forever, he'd probably want to make the most of it too.

They showed up late. The last ones to arrive, their friends all their waiting anxiously. Lily let out a huge sigh of relief when they finally materialized in the fireplace, but it was quickly quelled when she noticed that Sirius was half supporting a glassy-eyed Remus' weight. Sirius looked at her apologetically.

"Oh great, the gangs all here," said Remus hollowly, glad to be numb as he distantly registered the expressions that ranged from pity to disgust.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence as everyone stared at their friend, thinking of the pain that was about to come. It was finally broken by James.

"Class act, Moony. At least you made it inside without puking this time," he chirped.

Sirius let out a bark of laughter as Remus cracked a small smile. The tension in the room eased just a little.

"If you can't handle puke, Prongs, you're in for a rough few days."